Matt Patterson/AP/File
Frontier Airlines planes are parked at the gates at Denver International Airport on Sept. 25, 2021, in Denver.
CNN
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A passenger who was asked to leave a Frontier Airlines plane departing from Denver was later cited for hitting an airline employee with an intercom phone, according to the airline and police.
As Frontier Airlines Flight 708 was awaiting an early Sunday departure to Tampa from Denver International Airport, the airline’s main hub, the female passenger “became unruly on board and asked to leave the plane,” the statement said. “As he was deplaning, he grabbed an intercom phone and a flight attendant slammed it.”
In a statement to CNN, the Denver Police Department said the passenger was cited for assault in connection with the incident.
The flight to Tampa departed around 5:30 am local time, after the woman was removed from the plane, according to Frontier. The flight left Denver almost four hours lateaccording to FlightAware tracking data.
The passenger was able to book another flight home after being released, according to police.
It is unclear what behavior led to the passenger being initially asked to leave the plane.
Denver International Airport told CNN in an email Sunday that it, “unfortunately,” has no “flight information available.”
In November, a Frontier Airlines flight out of Cincinnati made an emergency landing in Atlanta after a passenger, who was later arrested, was found carrying a box cutter, said an airline spokesperson.
The passenger had a second box cutter in his carry-on luggage, the Transportation Security Administration told CNN at the time.
The Federal Aviation Authority has received reports of at least 670 unruly plane passengers in 2023 on May 14, the US transportation agency statistics showed.
There were 2,455 uncontrolled passengers reported in 2022, according to the FAA.
